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Local privacy notice

How the Office of the Vice Provost Education and Student Affairs (OVPESA) will deal with your personal data.

1. Introduction 

Office of the Vice Provost Education and Student Affairs (OVPESA) - (“we” “us”, or “our”) - respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. 

Please read this privacy notice carefully – it describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about your rights. 

It applies to personal data you provide us and supplements the following wider UCL privacy notice(s):

We keep this privacy notice under regular review. It was last updated on 20 July 2018.

2. About us

The Office of the Vice Provost Education and Student Affairs (OVPESA) is part of University College London (UCL).

UCL, a company incorporated by Royal Charter (number RC 000631), is the entity that determines how and why your personal data is processed. This means that UCL is the ‘controller’ of your personal data for the purposes of data protection law.

This privacy notice also covers the following websites under our (OVPESA) control:

3. Personal data that we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. 

It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you. This may include:

  • Your name, contact details and country of origin; 
  • Your photograph;
  • Your degree programme;
  • Your UCL identifiers e.g. UCL Person Identifier (UPI) or student number (SRN);
  • ‘Special category’ data about you (this may include details about your disability, race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation etc.);
  • Your bank details;
  • The names and other details about third parties who are involved in the issues we are helping you with; and
  • Your opinions/thoughts in forms of interviews in written, audio or video format.

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • To register you as a client and to manage our relationship with you;
  • To help you with your enquiry. Depending on the circumstances, this may include special category personal data. Here, the processing of your information is carried out on the basis of your explicit consent; 
  • For communications purposes. If you have taken part in an interview for promotional purposes (whether in written form, video or audio), the content of this can be used:
    • On UCL websites
    • Promoted in UCL e-newsletters
    • Promoted on UCL social media platforms
    • Published on third party platforms such as YouTube

Where the processing is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details set out below in section ten. Please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

We may also use anonymised data, meaning data from which you cannot be identified, for the purposes of:

  • reporting to steering groups or other UCL bodies;
  • service evaluation;
  • education and research (including published reports or journals and at conferences); or
  • promotional purposes. 

Student surveys

If you respond to one of our institutional student surveys, such as Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) or Student Experience Survey (SES), your data will be used to better understand and improve the experiences of students like you at UCL.

PDF iconDownload the full details of how we collect and use your details in student surveys.

5. Who we share your personal data with

Your personal data will be collected and processed primarily by our staff and UCL (access to your personal information is limited to staff who have a legitimate need to see it for the purpose of carrying out their job at UCL). 

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes outlined in section four:

Mailing lists

If you sign up for any of our e-newletters, these are usually managed by third parties and the personal details you provide in order to receive these communications will be processed by them. 

As data controller, UCL will remain responsible for your personal data. Please check the details on the specific sign up form you complete.

Online surveys

UCL uses Online Surveys, a Higher Education surveys platform managed by JISC, which stores data within the EU. No survey responses will be linked back to you and are only reported in groups of five or larger.

This is primarily used in relation to student surveys and the Laidlaw Research and Leadership Programme.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes – we only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), except when using mailing lists managed by Mailchimp, see section five.

7. Information security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We have established procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention and storage

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

We will keep your personal data according to the Records Retention Schedule.

We may take your photograph if you have provided us with information for promotional purposes. This will be stored indefinitely. Your photograph may be stored in one of two ways:

  • If your photograph is a portrait of only you, this will be stored within OVPESA and only used for the promotional purposes noted in section four.
  • If the photograph is of a group, teaching activities or participation in an activity e.g. workshop, these photographs will be uploaded to the UCL Digital Media Imagestore. Any member of UCL staff may access these images and use them for promotional purposes at UCL.

If you do not want you image added to the Imagestore, or wish to have it removed, please contact teaching.learning@ucl.ac.uk. 

9. Your rights

Under certain circumstances, you may have the following rights under data protection legislation in relation to your personal data:

  • Right to request access to your personal data;
  • Right to request correction of your personal data;
  • Right to request erasure of your personal data;
  • Right to object to processing of your personal data;
  • Right to request restriction of the processing your personal data;
  • Right to request the transfer of your personal data; and
  • Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer.

10. Contacting us

You can contact UCL by telephoning +44 (0)20 7679 2000 or by writing to: University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT.

Please note that UCL has appointed a Data Protection Officer. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk   

You can contact OVPESA by emailing teaching.learning@ucl.ac.uk 

11. Complaints

If you wish to complain about our use of personal data, please send an email with the details of your complaint to the Data Protection Officer so that we can look into the issue and respond to you. 

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) (the UK data protection regulator).  For further information on your rights and how to complain to the ICO, please refer to the ICO website.